A five-alarm (at least) warning

 

   The other evening, I went to Scripps College to hear a conversation with Van Jones, perhaps now best-known as an commentator on CNN. Jones, a Black man, has worked in the past several presidential administrations and runs an organization that places disadvantaged young people, including the formerly incarcerated, into green jobs. I was looking forward to hearing good things about Kamala Harris becoming the first female president, the first Black woman president and the first president with an Indian background. 

   I was disappointed, sorely disappointed.

   When asked what Harris’ chances of winning the race were, Jones said that they are slipping away.  At this point, Trump seems to be on a “glide path to victory.”

   Oof!  This wasn’t what we wanted to hear. 

   Jones explained that we “aren’t working” for a Harris victory.  He declared that he loves and admires Harris and thinks that Trump shouldn’t win.  However, as he pointed out, unlike when Obama ran, people aren’t “calling in sick to take a week off to fly to Georgia or Pennsylvania to knock on doors” for Harris.  People aren’t manning the phone banks, all hands on deck.  Instead, not unlike what happened when Hilary Clinton ran against Trump in 2016 (and when, early on, Jones predicted that Trump would win), people “are tweeting each other about how happy they are that Harris instead of Biden is running.” People aren’t working for a Harris win. 

   When asked about Black men who a leaning toward Trump or thinking of not voting, Jones said that they are not being listened to and are being taken for granted by Democrats, that we aren’t knocking on their doors.  He said Black men question why they should care who wins when they haven’t gotten anything that was promised them (no voting rights law, no police reform, etc.) and pointed out that Trump funded Black colleges and released more prisoners than other recent presidents. 

   In answering a question from the audience about those protesting  America’s role in Israel’s war on Gaza, Jones asked, “Who do they think they are?” He questioned if these students and others really know what best, when they think it’s better, worth it, to send a message and let Trump, who is Netanyahu’s buddy and doesn’t give a damn about the Gazans and might let their land become Israel’s “beachfront property,” win – while Harris consistently says that what Israel is doing in Gaza is wrong and there needs to “be an immediate ceasefire.”

   These were tough words, and Jones knew it.  He said that he meant to scare us – scare us into action.  He said that this was the huddle in the fourth quarter when we are down by a goal. We are almost there but not quite – and that doesn’t count.  He said we aren’t acting like we might well have a dictatorship. 

   I have to say that while I was bummed out by what Jones had to say, I wasn’t exactly surprised.  After the initial flurry of excitement in the weeks after Harris became the nominee and at the convention, I’ve noticed that the excitement has lagged, if not fizzled out. 

   I can’t go to Pennsylvania or Detroit to knock on doors for Harris.  Writing this is the least I can do.  

When I see a guy

 

   Sometimes, like when a male student from the colleges shows up at Quaker meeting, and I can’t keep my eyes off him during worship, I wonder why I’m gay.  Why am I attracted, so very attracted, to men?  What was it that got me to get turned on when I see certain guys? 

   It’s not really about or only about dick. It’s not like, when I see a guy, all I see, or imagine, is his dick.  I can’t deny that it’s there, that it’s a factor, a big factor, but there is so much more to admire and love about the male body, the male physique.  I can get aroused when I see a guy’s back, a guy’s smooth, tanned shoulder blades.  I know they are a guy’s, even when they’re all I see, and I get excited. 

   I remember when Harvey Milk was murdered, and when thousands of gay men and lesbians rioted and marched, especially when his killer got off with a lighter sentence.  I was a young teenager, and it was decades before I came out, but I felt like I could relate to their rage and sadness, to their being made outsiders – no doubt because I was an outsider, shunned and made fun of, because of my disability and impaired speech. 

   Fine, but this doesn’t explain my same-sex love.  It is, perhaps, an important backdrop to what came later. 

   Sometime in my teens, I was made aware that I tended to avoid looking at myself in the mirror.  Was this true?  Did I not like seeing myself?  Was I repulsed by what I saw?  I didn’t know. As far as I know, I hadn’t thought about it.  Being so advised, I made an effort, a real, conscious effort, to look at myself in the mirror.  At first, it was an exercise, a chore.  After a while, though, perhaps like Narcissus looking into the pond, I began to like what I saw.  Indeed, soon enough, I admired and loved my crippled, spastic body. 

   Around this time, I discovered masturbation and was exploring ways that I could, with my limited physical ability, masturbate and enjoy and have fun with my dick and my body. I discovered that wearing overalls helped in this process – and it was a process.

   I soon found that I liked seeing myself doing this. Seeing myself having fun with myself in the mirror was even more fun. Whether or not I would have said so at the time, it was hot, my body was hot, and turned me on.

   Soon enough, I was thinking and wondering about other guy’s bodies, and I began looking at other guy’s bodies and enjoying it.  For many years, I couldn’t say I was turned on by them – I would tell myself that their clothes or hair were cool or something.  At the same time, I kept relating, and strangely feeling comforted by, all those gay guys protesting and marching for justice for Harvey Milk and later for their lives during the AIDS crisis and then against discrimination and unjust legislation and for the freedom to love and marry who they wanted.  When I finally came out, finally admitted that I was one of them, at age 39, it was a huge release, a great liberation. 

   There are probably other factors, like the fact that I liked writing poetry and going window shopping with my mom when I was a kid.  Then again, my brother didn’t really like playing sports and played French horn when he was growing up, and he didn’t turn out gay.  Those who are into Freud might say that I’m stuck in some childish phase, infatuated with myself. If I had not been disabled and if I had not been encouraged to not avoid looking at myself in the mirror, would I be straight?  I have no idea.  All I know is I love it that I love my crazy, twisted body, and I love it even more that I love guys. 

Silent, and a shame(d)

 

   My neighbors are moving. 

   I don’t remember if the young couple moved into the bright yellow and white house right across the street before or after my spinal surgery about seven years ago, but it was roughly, very roughly, around that time.  From my front window, I was intrigued by the punk-rock husband with his tattoos and his band t-shirts who didn’t seem to work and who did the yard work, hung up Christmas lights and sometimes played guitar in the front yard – there might have been a few band practices over there after they first moved in – and by the wife who always smiled and who always seemed to be pregnant.  Indeed, most remarkable, I watched the couple have four boys – four boys! – over the years.  The oldest looks to be about 7; I remember when he was a toddler.  Several weeks ago, the whole family was out washing one of their cars, with the new toddler watching from a stroller. 

   Now they are moving, and I’m sad.  I’m sad that I won’t see this family grow, that I won’t be able to see the boys get older, go to junior high school and high school. 

   I’m also pissed.  I’m mad that I never found out what the father does and if he did or does play in a band.  I’m mad that I never found out the boys’ names. 

   I’m pissed at myself, pissed that I never went over and talked to them.  Just talked to them! 

   It sounds simple – going over and saying hi, like good neighbors supposedly do, but I guess it’s not for me.  For me, it’s more than being shy. 

   I’ve been thinking about this over the last year, especially after attending a memorial of the mother of a few kids I grew up with.  I realized, as we greeted each other awkwardly, that I never spoke to them, because I felt bad, embarrassed that my speech is hard to understand.  I was ashamed of my speech (and probably of being disabled).

   When I was in Santa Barbara last month, I saw an old friend who’s about my age.  We talked about getting older, and he mentioned that he’s having a hard time finding friends who are younger than he is.  I’m having the same problem.  I want to find people who are younger – people like my neighbors who are now leaving – to be friends with.  It is hard enough, as my friend can attest, and it doesn’t help that I am ashamed to talk. 

   That’s a real shame. 

The Big Yellow House (no longer)

 

   On the drive north from Los Angeles along the coast on Highway 101 (and 1), right before Montecito, home of Oprah Winfrey and Prince Harry and Megan, and Santa Barbara, is the small, unassuming town of Summerland.  For all my life, as long as I can remember, there was a restaurant there along the highway called The Big Yellow House which was, literally, a big yellow house.  (It was actually one – the first? – of a small chain of big yellow houses known for being, literally, big yellow houses and for serving Thanksgiving dinner every day.) It was pretty much a landmark. 

   Last month, I went to Santa Barbara for a few days, and when passing through Summerland, I saw that the big yellow house is no longer The Big Yellow House.  The house is still there, but it’s now a furniture store (perhaps appropriately enough, in a house), and it’s not yellow but off-white or a very pale yellow.  What’s most interesting is that the big The Big Yellow House sign was still there, somewhat faded, along the highway – perhaps in recognition of its status as a landmark?  Or maybe as a memorial?

   It occurred to me, as I passed through, that it was like my life.  Or lives. 

   Ever since my spinal surgery seven years ago, it has been like I have a new life.  At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself.  The surgery left me far more disabled, being able to do less and having to do things in other ways. As I’ve written about before, this means I’ve had to make many adjustments including to my attitude and mindset, like being satisfied with sticking around Claremont most of the time and not always traveling as I used to and not going so far when I do travel. 

   Although I’ve made progress on this adjusting, it is, as I’ve also written about here, not easy.  The fact is that my old life, my life before the surgery, is still and always will be there – somewhat faded.  As the song goes, there is always something there to remind me of what I used to be able to do, of where I used to be able to go, of the way I used to do things.  It doesn’t help that I keep doing or trying to do things, like going to all of the concerts and performances at the colleges here, that I used to do (and I was getting tired of keeping up with it all before my surgery!).

   What makes it so hard is not that or just that my disability is worse. I am more disabled, because I have a new disability. I now have a spinal cord injury – the surgery to remove a virus damaged my spine, leaving me paralyzed from the chest down and only able to move my neck and my left arm to a limited extent (and also with considerable neuropathic pain). On top of, layered on, the Cerebral Palsy that I was born with. After all that it took for me to learn to live, to make a life, with Cerebral Palsy, I now, in my 60’s, have to learn to live and make a life, with a lot of new ways of doing things, with a spinal cord injury.   

   What’s hard is that, although my old structure, my old life, is still there with its signs, although somewhat faded, I am no longer The Big Yellow House.

At home - and not - in Claremont

 

   There is a lot of things I love about living in Claremont.  I love the colleges, all the artists and all the artsy people (as pretentious as they sometimes are), the small-town and relatively liberal vibe in the midst of a white-bread if not conservative suburbia. 

   But it does drive me crazy – not in the good way.  Claremont has its problems.  What bugs me even more is when it pretends it doesn’t.  For instance, here’s my latest Claremont Courier column, published on June 28. I can only hope the problem doesn't get worse with the Grants Pass Supreme Court ruling which came down that very day. 

HOMELESSNESS IS NO JOKE.  CLAREMONT’S ATTITUDE ABOUT IT IS. 

   Remember Occupy Claremont? 

   Remember when there were people camping out in front of City Hall some 15 years ago?  They were there in solidarity with other encampments in cities across the U.S, starting on Wall Street in New York City, protesting economic inequality.  Remember? 

   The recent encampments protesting Israel’s war in Gaza reminded me of it. But I’m also reminded of it when I think about homeless people in Claremont. 

   I remember that during Occupy Claremont, in which some of the people camping were actually homeless and in which the participants were supported with meals and showers by Pilgrim Place residents, there was a fair amount of commentary, plenty of it negative with not much sympathy for the cause.  A typical letter in these pages said that the encampment made the village “dangerous.” 

   There was a group of Claremonters – people who cared more about the poor and the unhoused than about what the Village looked like – who met at the time to discuss what could be done to help the homeless in Claremont. Because they knew that they were more than the 5 or some other ridiculous number that was come up with in the first homeless count here, also at the time.

   They also found out, among other things, that many homeless people spend the night here, where they feel safe, and go to Pomona during the day for food, showers and other services.  It was also known that a number of students in Claremont schools didn’t have homes, ones where they regularly stayed. 

   The situation isn’t that much better today. For example, as I’ve heard from a few sources, there are two shelter beds in Pomona reserved for “Claremont’s homeless.”

   Really?  Two shelter beds for the homeless in Claremont?  (There are no homeless shelters in Claremont.) Tell me I heard wrong – please. 

   And, according to many of the homeless persons who hang out here, like those who use the Friday shower program at Saint Ambrose Church, the shelter in Pomona is dangerous, unclean, etc.  No wonder they spend the night here.

   That there are two shelter beds for the unhoused in Claremont – and they’re not in Claremont?  What a joke!  And not a funny one, never mind probably illegal. 

   At least for now, cities aren’t allowed to criminalize or drive out the homeless unless they have shelter or housing for them.  Otherwise, the homeless have to be allowed to sleep in parks, in cars or wherever they feel safe. 

   But it looks like Claremont wants to ignore this, would rather move the homeless along and act like they’re not here, like Claremont doesn’t have a homeless problem.  Half the items in the police blotter in these pages are about homeless individuals (as if they can pay the fines!).

   Like I said, a joke – and an unfunny one. 

   Look, I get why Village merchants complain about finding people sleeping or having urinated or defecated in their doorways.  This is a bad, bad problem – no doubt about it.  But punishing those who have nowhere to sleep and go to the bathroom and then acting like this isn’t a problem here isn’t a solution.

   Locking the restrooms in Larkin Park and forcing the homeless to more or less use the grounds of the nearby Quaker meetinghouse, in which homeless people could spend the night for several years before the COVID pandemic, as a toilet, driving the meeting to make the agonizing, unfriendly, unQuuakerly decision to make trespassing on its property a crime is not a solution. 

   It’s a bad, bad joke. 

   Yes, Larkin Place, which will provide housing and services to homeless people, is being built next to the park and the Quaker meeting but only after some fierce protesting by neighbors and others farther afield and some resistance by the City Council.  The fact is that, essentially, it’s the law that this facility and two or three others in Claremont are being built. It’s the law that more housing, more affordable housing, be available, including in Claremont. 

   But Larkin Place may not solve the homeless problem – yes, the homeless problem – here.  Homeless people may still show up in Claremont.  Claremont should get serious about this problem and realize it’s a problem, not a crime to sweep away.